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I’ve recently talked to various Wall Street professionals that are considering a career move into corporate finance. These capital markets savvy people asked for input. How should they approach their search? What jobs should they target? Where would they fit best?

These are interesting questions. I know a lot of smart bankers, and corporate finance teams are always in search of good talent. Such cross-pollination could prove advantageous.

I usually ask, “what is your value proposition?” to clarify expectations. Responses vary but always involve modeling skill. These financial professionals declare that, once they land their new corporate finance role, the work will revolve on financial models. I admit this theory is kind of true. But it lacks perspective, and that leads me to this blog topic.

Corporate finance is not limited to modeling.

Advancements in business intelligence (“BI”) bring new quantities and dimensions of data to Corporate Finance. The combination of faster networks, cheaper data storage, and BI platforms such as Tableau and Microsoft Power BI offer break-through opportunities for financial presentation. It’s amazing. The speed and capacity with which we are now able to analyze massive amounts of disparate data is a game-changer.

But there are common misconceptions about this new frontier. Related marketing suggests the BI platforms are magical. BI salesmen suggest we can simply push a button to see infinite volumes of charts and graphs that solve every conceivable analytical problem. Don’t be fooled. It doesn’t work that way.

Yes, the new technologies perform calculations at lightning speed and offer expansive dimensions in data analysis. But the problem is not with the technology. The problem is with the data. Wrangling these innovative analytical opportunities is a fool’s errand without a defined financial data strategy.

A Disorganized Approach
At the base level, managing financial data has rules. Generally Accepted Accounting Principals (“GAAP”) govern the structure of accounting, and since GAAP defines the structure and content of financial reporting, there is a predefined financial data strategy. Finance teams build a standard chart of accounts (“CoA”) to support the financial reporting system. Using the CoA data structure, along with some consolidation and adjustments, it’s clear how to present the Income Statement or Balance Sheet. Problems arise, though, when considering data either behind or ancillary to the consolidated general ledger (“GL”) data.

Consider this simple example. An analyst working at Imaginary Company wants to use their new BI software to analyze the Finance function’s costs. read more


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Financial analysis can be a thankless job. You distribute numerous financial reports only to be asked rudimentary questions about every spreadsheet. You spend countless hours building the perfect model, but the boss swiftly ignores it. Sometimes you wonder if anyone understands your work. Is anyone listening?

The answer is yes, people are listening. There is an audience for your work. But if you are suffering such dismissive reactions to your analyses, the problem is not whether anyone is listening. The problem is whether anyone is following.

It is important to remember that, to the standard user, the output of financial analysis often seems nothing more than a mass of jumbled numbers. Even short, summary tables can be indecipherable without directions. And yet many financial analysts neglect this reality.

Financial analysis must be designed with the intended recipient in mind or it will likely be ignored.

I have been teaching finance teams about Financial Approval lately. And after a few hours leading these sessions, it occurred to me that I have never personally been trained on how to process an approval. Instead, I’ve just learned by watching my bosses approve things over the years.

That approach seems very dangerous. Now that I’m in a senior role, I approve a huge portion of my company’s investments and expenses. And what if, during my years of boss observation, I hadn’t grasped the right practices? Or what if my bosses had bad habits, and I latched onto those? I could be wreaking havoc and not even know it (not to mention jeopardizing my own future employability).

Luckily, I have worked for some good bosses, and it turns out that I have done a good job controlling spend and investment over the years. Nevertheless, not everyone may be so lucky in their boss-adjacent education. So I thought Financial Review & Approval would be a good subject for a blog post.

Financial review and approval is a key component of a company’s internal control processes. Such controls typically include segregation of duties, most likely ensuring that two or more people are involved in reviewing and approving investments and expenses. In most internal control structures, the approval process is designed to supervise accuracy, communication, reliability, and compliance around the spend request and approval process. And since specific spend requests are often cross-functional and/or international, that supervision can be complicated.

This complication is why financial approvers must be adequately trained. read more

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If you work in corporate finance, you know it’s easy to get lost in a sea of numbers. You spend your days wading through reconciliations and mapping variances that are full of numbers. And on any given day, if you’re good at your job, your reconciliation is clear and concise. Your variance analysis may even be transformed into a walk. If you’re a great analyst, your presentation even explains why the variances exist. But only if you’re an exceptional financial professional, do you skip the obvious and get to the point.

The Point can encompass a multitude of dimensions, but those dimensions generally pivot on a few key questions. First, The Point will always answer what specific operational action (or inaction) caused the variance. I like to call this The What.

Often, though, specific operational variance descriptions are not enough. In these instances, The Point will also answer The What Else. read more